John Isaac Guion

Guion was born in Adams County in the Mississippi Territory to Sarah Lewis and U.S. Army officer and planter Isaac Guion. He studied law in Lebanon, Tennessee along with William L. Sharkey, was admitted to the bar, and established a successful practice in Vicksburg, Mississippi.{{Cite news |date=1963-07-01 |title=Vicksburg Was Center for Famous Lawyers |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-vicksburg-post-vicksburg-was-center/167017143/ |access-date=2025-03-02 |work=The Vicksburg Post |pages=122}} He practiced in partnership with Sharkey and later with Seargent Smith Prentiss. John Isaac Guion was elected mayor of Natchez, Mississippi for the 1825–26 term.{{Cite news |date=1859-11-07 |title=Natchez City Guide |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/mississippi-free-trader-natchez-city-gui/167011563/ |access-date=2025-03-02 |work=Mississippi Free Trader |pages=1}}

A Democrat in politics, Guion was first elected to the Mississippi State Senate in 1842. He later moved to Jackson, and continued to serve in the State Senate.

Guion supported slavery and states' rights. As a result, he played a prominent role in the Jackson convention of 1849, which was called to discuss how the Southern states should respond to the possibility of California being admitted to the union as a free state.

In 1850 Guion was chosen to serve as the Senate's President pro tempore. In February 1851, Governor John A. Quitman resigned to defend himself against charges of aiding in filibustering expeditions against Spanish rule in Cuba. Guion became acting governor and served until November when his Senate term expired. He had not run for reelection, and the Speaker of the Mississippi House had also not. Since no one in the line of succession could assume the governorship, the legislature subsequently chose James Whitfield as an interim replacement, and he served until the term of the new governor started in 1852.

Guion had not run for reelection to the State Senate because he had run for the Mississippi District Circuit Court judge in Jackson. He began his term as scheduled and served until his death. He died on June 6, 1855, and was buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Jackson. He was remembered as handsome, courteous, "an effective jury lawyer, a social favorite...and a true gentleman of much ability."

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• [http://www.nga.org/cms/home/governors/past-governors-bios/page_mississippi/col2-content/main-content-list/title_guion_john.default.html John Isaac Guion] at [http://www.nga.org/ National Governors Association]
• [http://www.greenwoodcemeteryjackson.org/general_tour.html General Tour Information] (including burial information for John Isaac Guion) at [http://www.greenwoodcemeteryjackson.org/ Greenwood Cemetery]
• {{cite web|author1-link=David Sansing |url=http://mshistorynow.mdah.state.ms.us/index.php?s=extra&id=121 |title=John Isaac Guion: Seventeenth Governor of Mississippi: February 1851 to November 1851 |last=Sansing |first=David G. |date=December 1, 2003 |website=Mississippi History Now |publisher=Mississippi Historical Society}}

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{{Governors of Mississippi}}

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Category:1802 births

Category:1855 deaths

Category:Democratic Party governors of Mississippi

Category:Democratic Party Mississippi state senators

Category:19th-century members of the Mississippi Legislature

Category:Mayors of places in Mississippi

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